The Woman from the Girls
by FlowerPot21
Summary: Ryan knows the difference, and he knows and wants what he's got...RN


_Just a cute little moment they left out the show:) Enjoy.

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**The Woman From the Girls**

Ryan thinks that he should be paid extra for what he does.

Being water-tortured wasn't the high point of his day, nor the week, actually.

Does he feel under-appreciated?

Sometimes, but only because most of the work he does is in the lab. Of course, they're all scientists at heart, but unlike Eric, Walter, and Horatio, he most certainly prefers the work in the lab versus being out on the street, pounding the pavement. He did enough of that before he began to work in the lab, and over the years he's been a CSI, he's almost forgotten how messy and physical fieldwork can be. He and Eric have chased down more suspects than they have in a long while, and Eric isn't the better for it either, but being in good shape helps. Ryan thinks it's been much easier for himself now that he's fifty pounds lighter.

One afternoon in the locker room it was himself, Eric, Walter and Horatio, and they were joking about how the running after suspects was getting old.

Horatio laughed and concurred, saying: "In the words of Roger Murtaugh, 'I'm gettin' too old for this shit.'"

They all laughed when he said that, and it is so true.

Being a cop is taxing at times, it really is, and it doesn't get any easier, even though Ryan likes to think that he's still (fairly) young, thirty three, and in a good place in his life and career. It is funny to think that Eric, Calleigh, and Natalia are in their thirties too, and they all began their careers so young and at about the same age, so it seems like they are beyond their years, and people tend to think so, but really, outside of work, they are regular friends, almost like family, like siblings who are (slightly) immature and pick at each other all the time. Eating is their favorite pastime, the thing they do the most often, but basketball nights are a new thing in honor of Jesse, and game nights at Calleigh's are still going strong, and clubbing with Walter is always interesting.

Ryan will admit, Walter's got game, despite his imposing height. Eric always makes it a point to tease him, to which Walter always responds "You've got a girl, I think." Eric always smirks, probably thinking, You don't know the half of it.

Eric and Calleigh's relationship, the topic of it, the bringing up of it is off-limits now, has been for a few months, and Ryan hates to see his two friends avoiding each other, dodging phone calls, and deliberately not making an effort to converge at some point for something that's non-work related. They've both been acting strange around each other for reasons unknown, and it's annoying because neither he, Natalia, or Walter know with whom to align their loyalties, though apparently this little "thing" between the couple was mutual.

_Yeah_, Ryan thinks skeptically as he steps out of the shower. _About as mutual as a divorce in Miami_.

But thinking about them doesn't make him entirely optimistic about his relationship either; coworkers dating is always a tricky situation, but dating in general is even more difficult and nearly impossible, given the amount of dedication he puts into his work. It's a natural tendency to gravitate toward the familiar...

Speaking of gravitation, he smells something very savory, very spicy, and he quickly dries off and gets dressed in jeans and a tee shirt before going downstairs to his kitchen. On the way, he notices Natalia's purse and jacket tossed haphazardly on the couch and her heels lying down under his coffee table. He grins slightly, thinking that she's made herself at home, that she now feels a little more comfortable being in his house. At first, she thought it odd that he was so neat, and she was afraid to do or touch anything. He had to remind her to relax and that as long as she was with him, she should consider this her home too.

Now, she seems to have taken his words to heart, apparently because she's doing the same thing here that she does in her house: tossing her purse and jacket onto the couch and then plopping down and kicking her heels off and leaving them where they lie. And he goes behind her and hangs up her jacket, places her purse on the table in the breakfast nook, and her heels by the door.

Being with Natalia has made him happy, extremely happy, and he's noticed a change in her. She's not as closed off as she used to be, she's independent, and she seems to be stronger now, less fearful of relationships, but she still shows her emotions easily which has been good for him because he doesn't have to try and decode her, try to figure out her mood. It's always in her eyes, he can tell her every emotion in her eyes. He thinks that she's gorgeous, and he'd been wanting to tell her so for the last year or so. There has always been a subtle attraction between them, but that that has most certainly evolved into real, intimate feelings.

Ryan thinks that they began getting closer after they got caught in that explosion. He's been in dangerous situations before, but he thinks that Natalia had never experienced a brush quite like that before. For a while after, she was off her game, jumpy, and of course, he knew about her hearing problem, which, as she revealed to him later, was something that'd turned into a question of when. Her inner ear had already been damaged from the abuse she suffered from her ex-husband, which reminded him of just how recently she'd escaped her marriage.

It's only been five years since she divorced Nick, three since he's been dead, so for a long while until some months ago, the pain she lived through for six years was still somewhat in the forefront of her memory.

But that's what he lov-_likes_ about her, is her resilience, is her willingness to still be loving and giving and compassionate when her years with Nick could have made her angry and jaded and unable to allow herself to see who she can become without being stifled and hurt.

He's not quite ready to admit his love for her yet, but he's getting there as he watches Natalia cook like a pro. That's one thing that he's definitely liked about dating her: he's been getting fed. He's more of a microwave and speed-dial chef, so it's been good for him to watch her cook or take that extra step and cook with her. She shops for groceries at this organic place, and he watched her take care to smell the vegetables, the fruit, he saw her take great care with choosing her spices, and she has excellent taste in wine. These are all signs of her childhood he thinks because she is also fluent in three languages, she rides horses like a pro, something which she and Calleigh have in common, and she studied abroad in her teen years and through college. He always figured that her father must have been in something successful to be able to give three daughters very expensive educations, and he figured right, it turns out.

Miguel Boa Vista is an engineer, specializing in construction, and his work has earned him top dollar and world-wide recognition. It's a wonder Natalia and her sisters picked up other languages and customs. Zania Boa Vista stayed home, and took joy in the fact that aside for her daughters, she never had to lift a finger. After an entire childhood and young adulthood working, Miguel promised her she'd never have to work again, and he made good on it too.

But Natalia gave him the impression that her parents weren't too happy about her decision to become a scientist. She told him on either their third or fourth date, he can't remember which, that her father didn't agree with a lot of the choices she's made in her life, and Ryan thinks that now that he's met her parents, he can now add himself to the list of choices that her father disapproves of.

God help him the minute he tells Natalia's father that he's fallen in love with his daughter and expresses his desire for a blessing to marry her.

_That _will be an interesting conversation.

Natalia's got her father's eyes, though hers are much less stern and hard looking than her father's.

It's not that Ryan is afraid of Mr. Boa Vista, it's just that there is a distinct possibility that he may be his son-in-law somewhere down the road, if Natalia wants him to be her husband for some strange, inexplicable reason, and he knows that her father will go out of his way to make his life non-easy when they spend time as a family, to include holidays and special occasions.

Despite her father's obvious disapproval of him at the moment, she is still so _humble_. And that right there makes his heart flutter. Serving others selflessly is her specialty. She loves nothing more, he thinks. She is so gracious to her father, who is perhaps too hard on her at times, and yet, it doesn't bring her down.

Ryan walks up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, pressing a kiss to her shoulder.

Natalia turns and kisses him softly.

"Hi," she smiles. "Feel better?"

"Yeah," he chuckles. "But I do feel a little water-logged."

"You know what I'm wondering," she begins as she turns her attention back to her cooking.

"What?"

"Why was the tub filled and ready to begin with?"

He furrows his eyebrows. "Honey...I'm pretty sure he filled it while I was out..."

"No," she says as she turns the stove down and then goes over to the fridge to retrieve a bottle of wine. "That would have taken too long, and you said the water was tepid when you were dunked. It'd been filled for a while, Ryan."

"Oh," he shrugs. "I guess Nichols must've made me, which is rather disturbing because I thought I had a pretty good cover."

Natalia raises an eyebrow at him as she pours him a glass of wine. "Well...all the younger, hotter girls, whom we now know to be hookers, were none the wiser, from what I heard."

He smiles. "Oh yeah, didn't you hear, honey? They were all over me."

She frowns at him and makes her way back to the stove. "Not funny, Ryan."

He furrows his eyebrows, incredulous that she's..._jealous_.

"Natalia you cannot be serious," he says. "You know that it was just a cover, a bad one, apparently, right? I didn't even give any of those girls a second glance."

"Oh, so you _did_ look at them?"

"Yes-no! Well I-I had to...I mean," he stumbles on his words and he scratches his head. "I couldn't _not_ look at them. I was looking for that Kate girl."

"And she kissed you."

"Yeah, about that," he grins. "It kind of sucks that it wasn't because she truly liked me."

She glares at him. "I don't think I truly like you right now either. How are you _not_ getting how not-funny this is to me?"

"I don't know," Ryan ponders. "Maybe because this is a ridiculous conversation?"

She rolls her eyes and finishes cooking the chicken.

She turns off the stove with more force than is necessary.

"Dinner's ready."

She begins to set the table and he gently takes her arm and stops her.

"Natalia," he says softly. "Honey..."

"What?"

"You said the operative word," he says, putting his hands on her hips. "_Girls_-"

"Operative _words_. Girls _and_ hookers."

"Okay," he agrees. "Either way...aside from them being hookers, that's all they were to me were _girls_. A bunch of silly, half-drunk, desperate _girls_. I don't go for that, I never _have_ gone for that. Unlike most of my male counterparts who were at that party, I don't date girls. I don't _want_ a girl. No...what I want is _you_. A _woman_. You are...incredible, Natalia, and no matchmaker or dating service could ever find anyone more beautiful, more intelligent, or sweeter than you."

Her eyes glisten with tears. "You mean that?"

"Yes, I do," he says, caressing over her lower back. "You know what I was thinking while I was at that party?"

"What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I am so happy, that I am fortunate and honored to have the chance to be with you. And I wouldn't give up this chance for anything."

Natalia hugs him, and she kisses his cheek.

"You're a wonderful man, you know that?"

"I'm trying..."

"Well you've succeeded. You are a good man, Ryan Wolfe."

"You're a good woman, Natalia Boa Vista."

Ryan puts his hands on her cheeks and kisses first her forehead, next her eyes, then the tip of her nose before he kisses her lips.

She smiles. "I'll bet you're hungry."

"Yeah," he says.

She kisses him again then she begins to place the food on their plates.

Ryan pours a glass of wine for her, and then he turns on the light over the table in the breakfast nook. She dims the big lights in the kitchen, and she smiles as he pulls the chair out for her.

Natalia is always enamored with the fact that Ryan is and always has been a gentleman. Being a gentleman is a habit, so some man, sometime must have taught him how to treat a woman properly. He respects her in a way that goes beyond just formality or mere courtesy or obligation. Ryan's respect for her is deep, and he takes great care in protecting her emotions, he makes sure that he does right by her, and says the right things. He's been learning her all this time, and that is something that shouldn't surprise her, given his meticulous nature. He's seen all that the previous man in her life had done wrong, and he's come into her life and done everything right.

To know that he only has eyes for her, that his interest is only in her, makes Natalia happier than he'll ever know. She's been cheated on before, and it hurt far more than she expected when it happened to her. Ryan doesn't want to hurt her in that way, and he is aware of her past, and he knows how to help keep her heart on the mend, he's doubtful that he makes her whole, but he does. Though he doesn't think so, he tries to find other ways of making her whole and beautiful and...

Not _loved_.

She can't say it, not quite yet, though that's what the feeling is. But it's slowly growing between them, the love, it's developing from mere admiration to love. She can see that he has been thinking the same thing lately...it's in his eyes. His round, boyish eyes are what make him adorable to her. He is an eye contact person, he doesn't like wandering eyes, and when she looks into his eyes, she doesn't look away when he tells her she's gorgeous, or when he calls her honey, or when he tells her that she's amazing.

He means it. That's what is in his heart.

And what's in her heart isn't exactly love, but it's something very near it.


End file.
